Monthly Archives: May 2015

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Brett Anderson brings his 2-2 record and his 3.47 ERA to the hill in the rubber game of the three-game series. He’ll face Carlos Martinez, who’s 4-2 with a 3.54 ERA. Sunday is Oscar Taveras Day at Busch Stadium, honoring the Cardinal rookie who died in a car crash in October of last year; Martinez and Taveras were good friends.

Little-known fact: Anderson has yet to allow more than four runs in a start this season; this will be his 10th. Good sign: only two of the Cards’ players have even faced him before, and Peralta and Bourjos are a combined .150 in 20 lifetime ABs. On the other side, five Dodgers have faced Martinez, and they’re hitting a whopping .167 against him.

The Dodgers hope Carlos Frias does better today than he did in his last appearance when he gave up 10 runs to the Padres in just four innings. He’s 3-2 with a 5.34 ERA after that game, which pushed his ERA up from a very good 2.55. He’ll face Michael Wacha, who has emerged as St. Louis’s new ace in Adam Wainwright’s absence. Wacha is 7-0 with a 1.87 ERA.

Note that Grandal has returned from OKC (Heisey was sent back) and Van Slyke’s back has seemingly healed enough for him to play. Also note that Rollins has been dropped to 8th in the order and Turner is now hitting second.

The Dodgers hope Mike Bolsinger can come close to duplicating his last outing, when he gave up only one hit and got 23 consecutive hitters out at one stage of the game. He’s 3-0 with a Kershaw-like ERA of 0.71. He also grew up a Cubs fan, so he’s got a built-in dislike of the Cardinals. The Redbirds send out 36-year-old 154-game winner John Lackey, who’s 2-3 with a 3.18 ERA.

Zack Greinke (5-1, 1.48 ERA) goes out after a Dodger win for a change. He’s not asked to stop a losing streak of even a single game tonight. His mound opponent will be lefty Alex Wood (2-2, 3.83), a three-year veteran. The only Dodger who’s had more than ten at-bats against Wood is Jimmie Rollins, and he’s 0-for-14.

Jay Jaffe of SI tries to make sense of the Uribe trade and can’t: “For the Dodgers, they’ve traded away their best infield defender and a possible second-half bullpen arm in a deal that just doesn’t make sense.”

Here are the trade details: Uribe and Withrow to the Braves for Alberto Callaspo, Ian Thomas, Juan Jaime and Eric Stults. The Dodgers then followed up: “Callaspo on active roster, Thomas optioned to @okc_dodgers, Jaime goes to extended Spring Training, Stults designated for assignment.”

The best way I can make sense of it is that the Dodgers realized they weren’t doing Uribe any good playing him in a three-way platoon at third base and looked for a way to get him to a team which would use him more often. He’s a free agent at the end of this season and he wants to impress potential new employers. That may not be the real reason for this deal, but I can’t figure out any other sensible ones.

Clayton Kershaw hasn’t yet found his Cy Young form this season. He’s posted a record of 2-3 with an ERA of 4.32, roughly two runs per game higher than his norm. On paper the Braves should be a team he’d be happy to face, as they’re collectively hitting a chilly .151 against him. He’ll face Julio Teheran, who’s got a 4-1 record and a 3.91 ERA.

Apparently there was a lot of discussion between the Dodgers and the Braves during which the Dodgers offered Juan Uribe for up to three minor leaguers, but it fell through when the Braves’ utility infielder Alberto Callaspo vetoed the deal for as-yet-unknown reasons. Under the Collective Bargaining Agreement a player who signs a contract as a free agent can reject a trade if it’s before the calendar date June 15. There’s some speculation about his refusal to be sent to LA at the article behind that first link.

Offloading Uribe to a place where he could play regularly is a laudable goal, but for another reserve infielder? I suspect the Dodgers really wanted the three minor leaguers, several of whom were reportedly pitchers.

Lefty Brett Anderson (2-2, 3.61 ERA) will face the Braves for the first time in his career. He’ll face Williams Perez, a right-handed Venezuelan who’s making his second start in the big leagues and his fourth appearance overall. He hasn’t gotten any decisions yet. His ERA has dropped considerably from the 108.00 it was after his first stint against major league competition, when he went 1/3 of an inning while giving up two hits, walking two, and allowing four earned runs. His last time out was his first start; he went five innings, gave up one run, six hits and one walk while striking out seven.

Anderson has done pretty well against right-handed hitters, who have a combined .689 OPS against him. Against lefties he’s had poorer luck: he’s faced 61 of them and they’ve amassed an .803 OPS. Unfortunately, the Braves lean left-handed, so we’ll see.

Update: The LA Times reports that Charter Communications has made a $195/share offer to buy Time Warner. If that deal goes through then all Southern California Charter subscribers might be able to watch the Dodgers on the Sports Net LA channel. It still needs regulatory approval, though, so don’t hold your breath. Thanks to Howard Fox in the comments to Game 43 for this news.

Carlos Frias brings a 3-1 record and a 2.55 ERA to the hill on a Sunday day game. He’ll face James Shields, who hasn’t lost this season and has won five of his nine starts, posting a 3.74 ERA along the way. Because Shields has spent his career in the AL until this year, only two Dodgers have extensive records against him: A-Gon has 28 ABs hitting .357 with 2 HRs and 4 RBI, and Howie Kendrick has 17 ABs hitting a whopping .471 with 1 HR and 2 RBI.

We get our first look at Austin Barnes behind the plate. He’s 25 years old, he’s caught 9 of 23 base stealers and he’s had 3 passed balls. He’s got a slash line of .290/.390/.430 with 5 doubles, 3 homers and 13 RBI.

Right-hander Mike Bolsinger tries to continue his early-season success (he’s 2-0 with a 1.04 ERA and 14 strikeouts in 17 1/3 innings, all starts) against right-hander Ian Kennedy, who’s had a slow start. He’s 2-3 with a 6.75 ERA over 6 starts and a 2-1 K/BB ratio.

Grandal wasn’t scheduled to play today anyway, according to Mattingly, but now they’re going to monitor him for concussion and rest him at least until tomorrow. If it’s determined he has been concussed he’ll likely go on the 7-day DL, which was instituted in 2011 for just this kind of circumstance.

Of note to the strikeout-obsessed: “Pederson has struck out four times in his past 39 plate appearances (10.3 percent). Prior to that in 2015, he had struck out 43 times in 127 plate appearances (33.9 percent).”

Fun fact: There was some wondering about one-pitch winners and whether a reliever could win a game without throwing a pitch. It reminded me of Tippy Martinez of the Orioles, who picked off three runners in the tenth inning of a game against the Blue Jays in 1983. Infielder Lenn Sakata had been pressed into duty as the catcher because the Os had used both their starter and his backup in the rally in the ninth to tie the game. Sensibly, the Jays thought they could run on Sakata. The first three guys got on base, and Martinez picked off each one (see Roger Angell’s “Season Ticket” for another description). To make it even sweeter, Martinez got the win when Sakata homered in the bottom of the tenth.

The last time the Padres’ Andrew Cashner faced the Dodgers, Adrian Gonzalez whacked three home runs while he was pitching. Cashner’s been better since, although his record doesn’t show it. He’s 1-7 this season but he’s got a 3.24 ERA. He is 1-4 with a 2.22 ERA lifetime against the Dodgers and 0-2 this year.

He’ll face Zack Greinke, who lost his first game of the season last week against the Rockies even though he only gave up one run in six innings. This will be his third start against the Padres this season, and he’s given up one run in 13 innings so far. In nine career starts against San Diego, Greinke is 5-0 with a 1.58 ERA.

Bill Shaikin of the LA Times asks “What happened to the Padres?” as he looks at their 20-22 record this season and compares it to the high expectations the team had going into 2015. And what can we expect of this series? Shaikin says if you’re cynical you’ll say the pitchers will win. “The Padres have not scored in 14 innings. The Dodgers have not scored in 31 innings.”

This is a marquee matchup on paper. The Dodgers send out their ace Clayton Kershaw, who is a three-time Cy Young winner, MVP and four-time ERA title winner. The Giants send out last year’s NCLS and World Series MVP Madison Bumgarner, who was the best pitcher in baseball for the last three weeks of last year. When they’ve faced one another Kershaw’s had the statistical edge but the Giants have gotten the win in three of four games (thanks to foultip in the comments to Game 39).

Kershaw’s off to a rocky start (for him) this season, with a 2-2 record and a 4.24 ERA. Bumgarner is 4-2 with a 3.20 ERA so far in 2015. In his career Kershaw is 8-2 with a 0.97 ERA at AT&T Park.

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